Can robotic assistance mitigate the negative impact of sleep deprivation on surgical performance in microsurgical tasks?

[INTRODUCTION] Robotic surgery has expanded across various surgical disciplines, and although its application in microsurgery remains relatively novel, it has shown promise in a variety of microsurgical procedures. This study investigates how surgeons' preoperative levels of sleep and stress influence perceived workload during manual and robot-assisted anastomoses in a laboratory setting.

[METHODS] Seventeen participants with varying degrees of surgical experience performed a total of 149 anastomoses reporting pre-anastomosis sleep quality and stress levels as well as experienced workload factors during anastomosis such as perceived effort, frustration, and overall sense of performance.

[RESULTS] Poor sleep quality increases the perceived exertion when performing manual anastomoses ( < 0.001) but not when performing anastomoses using robot assistance. The difference between the robot assisted group and the manual group was not seen when studying stress levels.

[CONCLUSION] Robot-assisted surgery may mitigate the negative impact of sleep deprivation on subjective workload during microsurgical anastomoses. The impact of sleep and stress on surgical performance, including anastomosis completion times and patency, requires further investigation.